s/v Bodhran
Bodhran is my 1979 Downeast 32 cutter which I purchased in October of
2002 and has pretty much been my obsession ever since. Bodhran is hull
#130 of the 134 Downeast aka. Down East aka Downeaster 32s built in
Santa Ana California by Down East Yachts LTD. These boats are not
racers by any means, but offer an amazing amount of interior space, a
sound hull and a salty appearance that always turns a head or two.
Bodhran served as a good home for 4 years living at the dock while I was
fixing her up. She’s also performed admirably on my travels down the
West coast of the US, a couple of seasons in Mexico and in 2008 all the
way across the Pacific to New Zealand.
Builder: Down East Yachts Santa Ana,CA | Designer: Bob Poole | ||||
LOA: | 35′0 | Displacement | 17,000 | Fuel: | 80 |
LOD | 32′0 | Ballast | 5,500 | Water: | 100 |
LWL: | 25′10 | Bridge Clearance | 46′0 | Holding: | 6 |
Beam: | 11′0 | Draft: | 4′9 | Engine: | 25 hp Isuzu |
Sail plan
|
In addition to the stock Down East 32 sails, I’ve also got a .75oz 549sqft Asymmetric Spinnaker from cruising direct,
a storm jib and a storm trysail. The spinnaker has been a great
addition, allowing me to sail in winds as light as 3 knots as long as
the seas aren’t too high. I’ve only flown the storm jib once and it
performed beautifully in gusts up to 45 knots with a double reefed main.
When I blew out my main off the Washington coast, the trysail did an
admirable job when hove to and also did a surprisingly good job beating
to weather along with the jib in 25 knots of wind. Bodhran has been
pretty heavily modified over the years.
Here’s a link to a post I put up with some of my favorite mods: Some Projects That Have Treated Me Well
Here’s some pics of Bodhran from New Zealand in early 2011
Exterior
Interior:
And here’s some older pics:
Nice.. love how nice and neat your boat is.. I know that it probably is that way only once in a while just to take pictures but it has been years since ours wasn't a construction zone. I think we are in the end stages of rehabbing stuff and getting to use ours though.
I love the black trim on Valkyr but I have to say that the green trim looks exceptionally nice.
Hi Scott,
Good eye. I do indeed use my boom vang as a preventer when I sail off the wind. I installed a pad eye with nice big backing plate on each side of the deck about midway between the aft lower and the cap shroud. When I'm going up wind, I hook the vang to the base of the mast like normal, but I run it to the appropriate side to work as a preventer. Using the side deck position ends up working amazingly well as a vang. The pull is straight down instead of at an angle back towards the mast. It really allows you to flatten the sail which is great when you're going downwind in be seas and are trying to keep everything from slatting.
It's worked well for me for many 1000s of miles, but running the preventer that far forward on the boom causes a lot more stress on the spar. There's a serious chance of breaking your boom if you ever dipped it in the water with the preventer on. I've found that the convenience of setup means that I use it all the time. Using the main sheet to pull tight against the preventer keeps the boom from moving at all and eliminates shock loading. Most "proper" preventers just take too much time/effort to setup and don't get used unless you're on passage.
This post should probably be in the rigging section, but oh well.
Hope that helps,
Jason
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